Golden Tales
by KiwiiChann
Summary: Some fragments flying freely in one golden motion, from hand to hand, from thoughts to not so white/blank pages in the end.
1. Take it

**A/N: Compilation of very short fragments, most commonly known as One Shots, from different characters' point of view. The story mainly revolves around Harry and Isaac, but others will obviously get involved. If you've watched my Harry/Isaac videos, you already know how much the snitch means to them... Enjoy!  
**

* * *

"Take it."

Instead of looking at the golden orb that Harry was handing, Isaac was staring at him.

"Next time I come back here, we'll have a do over, and you'll catch it," Harry said simply.

But Isaac didn't move and gritted his teeth. "You're not coming back..."

"Not before this ends," he answered quickly, looking up to his friend, the golden snitch still in his hand.

They remained silent for a while. Hagrid's sobs could be heard from the short distance that separated them from Dumbledore's grave. Ron and Hermione were back in the castle. For a moment, Harry let his mind wander on its own before his eyes fell on Ginny again. Isaac followed his gaze.

"She's not coming with you?" he asked, even though he knew the answer.

"No," Harry said shortly. Then he added, "It's too dangerous."

Their eyes met and Harry shifted uncomfortably.

"What about Ron? What about Hermione?"

Harry waited a few seconds, his eyes focusing on something that Isaac couldn't reach.

"It's different." He gave a hoarse laugh that quickly faded away. "Just take it," he said seriously.

Isaac's hand eventually closed upon the snitch as he watched Harry turn back to the castle one last time.


	2. Autumn

The blinding movement of red and yellow leaves falling as you walk past them.

The wind stealing your every breath.

"D'you even know where you're going, mate?" a voice.

Left breathless.

"I-…"

Trying to catch your breath. Closely watching the leaves flying all around you. Maybe you could catch one if you're fast enough…

"Harry?" another voice.

A pause.

One hand on your shoulder. You realise you're inhaling a whiff of air as you suddenly stop dead on your tracks, just like the golden leaf right before your eyes.

"Harry? Slow down," same voice.

"He doesn't know where he's going, does he?" asks Ron again.

Hermione ignores him, probably because the locket is around his neck. Or maybe she has noticed that something was odd with the way you had acted. You can't be sure because you realise that what you thought you had found is lost and the moment is gone. Maybe it was never really here.

"I thought-…" you try to say.

Another pause. You see them looking at you, Hermione's hand still on your shoulder. All is still.

"I thought I'd seen something," you eventually manage to say. "It's nothing, sorry."

After a while, Ron mutters something incoherent and keeps going on. The wind has ceased. Hermione waits until you can finally breathe properly. Her hand is holding your arm now, as if she were afraid that you would lose your balance if she were to let go.

"Are you alright?" she asks softly. "I thought you were having a panic attack."

"I'm fine," you answer without any hesitation, as if it was the only option.

"You were having a _panic attack_ ," she insists.

"I'm fine."

Because pretending to be fine was, indeed, the only option.

Hermione tightens her grip on your arm.


	3. In the moonlight

They all stared at the cabinet.

"You think the horcrux is in there?" Ron asked slowly.

The cabinet shook again for a moment before Harry spoke up. "I _know_ it's in there. But something's wrong..."

"There's something else inside," Hermione finished for him, stating the obvious. Harry and Ron did not bother to answer. "What do you think this is?"

"I'm rooting for a second Nagini, I wasn't there for the first one," Ron said before the cabinet shook once more. The door was still closed and no noise was coming out of it.

"No, I would have felt it – I can't explain how, but I would have known if it had been her." Harry took a deep breath and tightened the grip on his wand, "I guess we'll just have to open it and see for ourselves."

The situation was sounding oddly familiar to him. Now that Harry was thinking about it, he could remember the last time he had been standing in front of an old dresser which had been shaking as if something was desperately trying to escape from it, ready to strike back…

Hermione had raised her wand.

"Wait –" he turned to her.

"Do you want to destroy the horcrux or not?"

The cabinet moved violently again but this time none of them jerked away. Harry glanced at Ron who just shrugged and nodded.

When Hermione whispered the incantation, the handle of the door turned in a loud click. The furniture was perfectly still and Harry wondered if the spell had worked, when the door suddenly burst open.

* * *

"We're getting you out of here," whispered Neville Longbottom as he unlocked the door of the dungeons' cell.

"Hurry, I can hear them coming…" came another voice from the hallway.

"Can you walk?" Neville asked the prisoner as he quickly walked into the cell.

The latter slowly stood up, helping himself with the wall, and once Neville reached his arm to help him get on his feet, he saw him looking up, laughing nervously. Neville noticed the blood on his teeth as the small, fragile boy – that had in fact become a young man – smiled weakly. "Of course," Colin Creevey responded in one breath, "I can even run."

Neville helped him out of the cell and closed the door before they both joined the third Hogwarts student down the hall at this hour of the night.

"We need to get to the passage through the portrait," Isaac Lahey muttered as he took Colin's other arm and placed it on his shoulders. "I can hear the Carrows, they're not far from the stairs, we'll have to take a run for it."

They climbed the stairs behind the portrait's hole and quickly walked down the hallways heading for the entrance of the room of requirement. Isaac tightened his grip on Colin's wrist as he watched the light of the full moon reflecting on the floor and walls. Neville quickened their pace as he noticed it as well, but decided not to act on it.

They all had different things on their minds these days.

* * *

Harry looked down and felt his heart fall dawn in his stomach. He was not even sure he could feel his heart at all. He didn't realise that he had let go of his wand which had rolled next to Hermione's feet. He suddenly had trouble breathing, everything around him became blurry, everything but the corpse lying inside the cabinet, lifeless – hopeless. The muscles on his back contracted, his throat was burning, yet he stood very still, just like the dead body facing him on the floor.

It was replaced by the moonlight at his feet in a blink of an eye. The corpse had disappeared, and he became aware of Ron standing right next to him, holding his shoulder, trying to bring him back to reality. "It was just a boggart, mate. It was a boggart, just a boggart..." Ron then took one step forward and picked up the cup that had once belonged to Helga Hufflepuff. A small piece of paper was folded inside it, but he decided to ignore it for now. "We should go."

Harry never saw the look Hermione gave him as she had taken some distance and stood erect in the back of the room.

 _Just a boggart._


	4. Captive

"I found it!" Hermione whispered so as not to wake Harry on the couch next to her.

Ron looked up. He was still holding the piece of paper that the three of them had found in Hufflepuff's cup. Only three words were written on it: _The Greater Good_.

"I knew I'd already read about it somewhere… It's referring to Nurmengard, the prison that Gellert Grindelwald built to hold his opponents. 'The Greater Good' was Grindelwald's slogan…" Hermione's voice trailed off as Harry suddenly mumbled something in his sleep.

"What does that mean?" Ron asked. "That Grindelwald knew about the horcruxes, and left us a note to say hi? 'This horcrux is for the greater good!' It's like RAB all over again," he groaned.

"All I know is that he's alive in Nurmengard. In fact, it was Dumbledore who put him there."

This time, they both tried to ignore Harry's spasm in his sleep.

"The prison is in Germany. It makes sense, since…" Her voice trailed away for the second time when she noticed that Ron was no longer paying any attention to her.

She suddenly slammed the book shut, but when she spoke again her voice was only a whisper. "I don't know what to do with him," she gave Ron a pleading look. "He doesn't sleep, and when he does he has nightmares." She closed her eyes when Harry had another spasm. Ron said nothing as he watched her stand up abruptly and pick up the book at Harry's feet, before she turned to him and voiced what they had been thinking from the start. "I never know if what he has are nightmares, or if it's you-know-who entering his mind each time he's unconscious."

* * *

"Don't think about all the psychopaths that are above us, don't think about the murderers locked up here. Do _not_ think about them."

"Why so sarcastic, Harry? I honestly love it here. It's so silent, so _deadly_ silent."

Hermione rolled her eyes when Ron and Harry both forced themselves to laugh. "Hush, would you two just focus once in your life?"

"I'm perfectly focused, thanks," said Harry.

"Focused on all the freaks in this place," finished Ron.

"Would you guys just stop for a minute and focus on the mission?"

"We don't even know if it's here."

"This is the only clue we've got."

The three of them carried on their way down to the tunnel of Nurmengard without another word, until it eventually led them to a large door made of steel, with inscriptions written on it.

"It's runes," Hermione said.

"What does it say?"

Hermione frowned. "Whoever manages to open this door will be the only one who can enter."

"Because that would be convenient for a plot, right?" Ron said with a smirk.

"Let me guess. We have to perform a blood ritual to get in," Harry sighed.

"No, but it's probably another form of magic – very old, very complex… We might have to use blood, but only to activate the runes."

"Parseltongue?" Ron suddenly suggested.

Harry turned to him. "This can't work every time, can it?"

"Of course it won't." Hermione was already searching for _Spellman's syllabary_ in her bag. "Grindelwald can't speak parseltongue."

"But you-know-who can."

"I don't think you-know-who would've placed a note with instructions leading to a piece of his soul anywhere, Ronald. Obviously, someone else placed it there. And as far as we know, nobody but you-know-who and Harry can speak parseltongue."

Ron was about to retort something when the door suddenly opened. They both turned to Harry. He shrugged, "I guess parseltongue works."

"This shouldn't even surprise us at this point," Ron muttered.

* * *

The place was surrounded by rocks, and as Harry walked in the light was becoming redder and redder, reflecting upon the stones up to the ceiling, growing more intense with each passing step. Soon, the corridor opened on a large, circular room, and Harry eventually noticed the source of the light.

It was a sword, right in the middle of the room, held up vertically, deep set onto something transparent and solid that he couldn't identify. Anyone walking in would have thought of Excalibur – it had entered his mind for a minute, especially when he noticed a throne on the other side of the room – but one thing that Harry knew for sure, without a doubt, was that he would have been able to identify the handle of that sword anywhere, for he had grabbed it himself years ago: it was the sword of Godric Gryffindor.

He stopped at this realisation, wondering where he had really ended up this time, and how it was possible to be next to the one thing that could help them in their quest.

Almost _easy_.

The answer was right there, yet he was standing still, waiting for something to draw him back, almost expecting Voldemort to pop up from behind the throne and cast the killing curse, yelling something dramatic in the process. Harry swallowed one puff of air and forced himself to breathe properly. He was staring at the back of the throne. Was someone seating there?

He took one step forward. Nothing happened. Silence and stillness were filling the air, but he could almost hear himself think.

He took hold of the handle. What had kept it set before disappeared in golden dust.

Someone was laughing, and the warmth Harry had previously felt coming from the sword disappeared in a red, gleaming flash.

It wasn't Voldemort's lifeless laughter. It was coming from the throne. In spite of himself, Harry took another step forward instead of going back to Ron and Hermione.

* * *

"Anyone knows where Isaac is?" Neville asked once all the members of Dumbledore's Army had joined the room of requirement for another session. "Isaac Lahey, anyone?"

There was a movement in the crowd. People whispering, glancing around and towards the door to see if Isaac would eventually walk in or not. People quietly worrying. It had been a few days since Isaac hadn't shown up at a meeting. As far as Neville knew, he hadn't gone to class for a while. And he couldn't be held prisoner in the dungeons either: Seamus and Colin would have seen him when they had rescued another student earlier.

"We can't trust slytherins," a seven-year student from Ravenclaw said. "Most of their families are deatheaters."

A younger slytherin raised her eyebrows. "Excuse you? Not all slytherins have the dark mark imprinted on their forearm."

"We went over this," someone else confirmed.

Ginny got closer to Neville, wand in hand. "Oh, he's next," she simply said with determination.

"Just remember it's for practise. Don't kill the guy."

"Call it what you want."

And with that she winked at Neville and left.

* * *

"Is that you?"

Harry stared, the sword in one hand, his wand in the other. "Me?"

The old man laughed again. Harry didn't move. Part of him was still wondering why he wasn't trying to get out of here alive, now that he had the sword and could destroy the remaining horcruxes. But there was something else – defiance, in the voice of the other.

It was only then that his mind clicked.

When Grindelwald spoke again, Harry's hand was clutched at his wand, and he could almost feel Fawkes' feather burn with fury.


End file.
